As a construction-defects reform bill faced defeat Monday in the legislature for the third year in a row, Rep. Joe Salazar had a curious thing to say.

"You would have had me," the Thornton Democrat told bill sponsors, if they'd only convinced him of the bill's positive effect on affordable housing.

What about the bill's positive effect on middle-class housing? What about the boost, say, to the sort of condominium projects that might spring up along transit lines but which have been in woefully short supply in recent years?

As The Denver Post's John Aguilar reported Tuesday, of "1,674 home starts recorded in the Denver area during the first three months of the year, only 18 were condos — a 1.1 percent start rate."

For that matter, don't Salazar and other Democrats who killed the bill in a House committee — the bill passed the Senate with significant bipartisan support — realize that expanding the housing stock helps hold down prices up and down the spectrum? Read the rest of the Editorial